Silent Hearts: A Novel

Written by Gwen Florio

Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

For fans of A Thousand Splendid Suns, “a rich, haunting, immersive story of cultures at the crossroads” (Jamie Ford, bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet) that follows two women in Afghanistan—an American aid worker and her local interpreter—as they form an unexpected friendship despite their utterly different life experiences and the ever-increasing violence in Kabul. ​

In 2001, Kabul is a place of possibility as people fling off years of repressive Taliban rule. This hopeful chaos brings together American aid worker Liv Stoellner and Farida Basra, an educated Pakistani woman still adjusting to her arranged marriage to Gul, the son of an Afghan strongman whose family spent years of exile in Pakistan before returning to Kabul.

Both Liv and her husband take positions at an NGO that helps Afghan women recover from the Taliban years. They see the move as a reboot—Martin for his moribund academic career, Liv for their marriage. But for Farida and Gul, the move to Kabul is fraught, severing all ties with Farida’s family and her former world, and forcing Gul to confront a chapter in his life he’d desperately tried to erase.

The two women, brought together by Farida’s work as an interpreter, form a nascent friendship based on their growing mutual love for Afghanistan.

As the bond between Farida and Liv deepens, war-scarred Kabul acts in different ways upon them, as well as their husbands. Silent Hearts is “highly recommended, especially for fans of Khaled Hosseini” (Library Journal, starred review).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Jul 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781508258414

Gwen Florio

Gwen Florio is the author of Silent Hearts. She grew up in a 250-year-old brick farmhouse on a wildlife refuge in Delaware and now lives in Montana. Currently the city editor for the Missoulian, Gwen has reported on the Columbine High School shooting and from conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia. Montana, her first novel in the Lola Wicks detective series, won the High Plains Book Award and the Pinckley Prize for debut crime fiction.

Reviews for Silent Hearts

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What do we really know of living a life in a country that has been torn apart by war, for over thirty years? What do we know about their daily lives, their culture? This novel takes us into the heart of Afghanistan, shortly after the attack in the US of 9/11. Four main characters, two from Afghsnistan and two sent by the US, a husband and wife, ostensibly to find a way to help the Afghani women. The characters were not completely fleshed out, we learn just enough to keep the story moving.Rather stereotypical characters, the professor husband, flirting with his students, think he know everything about Afghanistan because he once interviewed some of them in a controlled setting. His wife Liv, once his student, trying to ignore his attempted conquests. Farida, a young educated women, about to unwillingly embark on an arranged marriage to an uneducated man, and her new husband. Actually he was the surprise. The characters though, I felt weren't the main point this story was trying to relate. It turned out to be about a strong friendship that develops between two very different women, and the similarities, despite culture, that they share.What I didn't expect was how much this book made me think. Can we ever really undestand what it is like to live in a country where war and struggle is a daily occurrence? Are we judging this culture and the way it exists through Western eyes, imposing our thoughts on a culture we little understand? Are we really so different than they are? Do women here have total and equal control of their lives? Abused, murdered, raising children alone, at the mercy of a system that is stacked against them? Of course, so how different are we? A matter of degrees, perception? Are we taken in by our news channels who show us only what they want us to know? Our government who uses worse case scenarios to elicit enough outrage just to pursue their own agenda? I don't know all the answers to these questions, but it certainly is room for thought, and I know where I'm leaning.So as you can see a very thought provoking book, and one whose message will linger. Intense, it actually builds in intendity as the story progresses. Breath holding at the end. I came to care greatly about these two women, as they came to care about each other. A great book for discussion groups.My June read with Angela and Esil. Love our monthly reads, our discussions, valuable insights.ARC from Edelweiss.